My husband and I have been married for 6 1/2 years. Before we married, we attended our first orientation meeting on adoption. We knew fostering was for us. We sent our packet in 3 different times and 3 times our paperwork was lost. We were discouraged but felt like God wanted us to do something different but still get involved in fostering. We were at a friends home, who was a social worker at the time, and she encouraged us to get involved. She referred Greg and me to a therapuetic care agency. We contacted the agency the next Monday and to our surprise they immediately wanted to meet with us.
On Saturday, we had our first homestudy. And guess what? We did not even have to leave our house to do the GPS classes (10 week prep class for becoming a foster parent through DHR). They offered for us to do a self study and meet with them once a week about the information we were reading. It was great. We loved it. After 10 books and meetings, 2 additional homestudy visits, CPR classes and a TAPS class, we were ready to go. It was 4 or 5 months before we had our first placement.
Our first placement was a young lady who had been in the system for a very long time. She had been in more than 17 placements in a 6 year period. We cared for her for 8 months. We learned a lot from this experience not only about foster children but about our own family. The first thing God wanted us to learn was that we were not able to fix all these kids and that we were not superhuman parents. The second lesson was an evaluation of our family beliefs and values. We created a family rule book that included our thoughts about how we planned to raise our children, what our expectations were, our goals and beliefs for our children, and consequences for those rules when broken. Our book has been around for almost 4 years now. It has been updated, revised and revamped as we learn more about children in foster care and as our family dynamics change with each new placement.
The reason we got involved in foster are was to adopt. I can not have any more children and we really wanted another girl to add to our bunch. We have had many children come and go but none so far was the child God has chosen for us. We have come close to adoption only twice. Once was a little girl that we had for 15 months. She left us to return to a family member and it really broke our hearts. We did not give up though because we know God has something in store for us. We have had more than 35 children come through our home in a 4 year period. That is more than 35 children we have had the opprotunity to demonstrate what a true family can be and how God can change things for them. We have had opprotunities to witness to and encourage children that may have never had this opprotunity otherwise. We are still waiting for God to place that special child that will become ours. We have faith that He has something in store we can only dream. Each child brings new challenges, lessons to learn, and opprotunities to make a difference.
Right now, we have two children placed in our home with the possiblility of adoption in the next 8 months. Both seem to be a good match for our family but we are still waiting for God's voice to say go........
If you have ever thought of helping children either through adoption or fostering, know that our own country and state have many children who need a wonderful, loving, Christian home. Some are rough around the edges like an unpolished gem, some have the potential to become so much more. Most of these children just need someone to believe in them, love them and encourage them to make better choices in life. Maybe you are that person. If you are, please contact your local DHR agency or another foster care agency. Our children need us. It really does take a whole (village) community to raise a child.
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